Don't Fear the Jokerby
Chris Dee

Ha-Hacienda

The low-rise area west of the theatre district was
poised to be Gotham’s next hotspot. Sprawling renovated lofts interspersed
with charming historical walkups. The only condominium, Endicott Tower, was
still unfinished and likely to remain so until Frank Endicott settled his
dispute with Carmine Falcone or else found another source of concrete.
Neither would happen overnight, so the area had time to find a neighborhood
acronym that would give it the necessary cache. WesTheDi perhaps, although
some residents favored EiToHu denoting the perimeter from Eighth Avenue to
the Hudson where alpha residents would soon be strolling in the evenings,
defining the neighborhood by their personal style.

Tonight, however, the tone was set by non-residents.
The Batmobile crept quietly along Eighth Avenue, followed a few minutes
later by a six-foot autonomous vine snaking its way to the intersection.
After it disappeared, a lithe wisp of purple could be seen swinging
gracefully along the same route as the Batmobile but traveling in the
opposite direction.

..:: Vine snake, ::.. she reported on the
OraCom.

..:: Same one as before? ::.. Batman asked,
checking the rearview mirror to see if he could spot it.

..:: You think I can tell them apart? It’s leafy
and it’s slithering under a mailbox, what do you want from me?::..

Batman grunted.

..:: At least she hasn’t found them,
::.. Selina
offered cheerily.

..:: Neither have we, ::.. Batman countered.

..:: Woof. ::..

The OraCom went silent for the next fifteen minutes,
during which, Psychobat seethed. When the situation with Catwoman first
started to change, he allowed it only after he satisfied himself that each
planned step would not impact his mission. Happiness for Bruce Wayne did
not mean less Batman for Gotham. On the contrary, the improvements in his
personal life seemed to infuse the mission with greater purpose. The
realization that life is good made the taking of it so much worse.
Even crimes that didn’t involve a death struck a deeper chord. The personal
experience of a day-to-day existence that was… pleasant… To ruin
that for people, to insert hardship and headaches and fear into their lives,
it made him want to punch the perpetrators harder than ever before.

So far, so good. Life with Selina meant happiness for
Bruce Wayne, happiness for her (a development in which he took a particular
pride), and a more centered and focused Batman for Gotham. So far, so
good. So far, he could tolerate all that had happened. But now—

..:: You’re still mad? ::..

..:: No, ::.. Bruce lied.

“Com’s on the fritz,” Robin said, landing on the fire
escape where he usually hooked up with Batgirl at this time of night.

She nodded.

“Oracle say cell tower. Is new tower for phone by her
building. Make interferity.”

“Interference,” Tim said with a smile, which then broke
into a full laugh. “Interference from the cell tower? That’s the excuse
she came up with? That tower’s been up for a month, why’s it only causing
problems tonight, hm? I’ll tell you what it is. There’s a new encryption
matrix on channels one and nine, that’s what’s playing hell with the other
channels. I’m going over Saturday and help her sort it out. You should
come. Dick’s making paella.”

“Why? And no say why Dick make paella. Is dumb joke
and no funny. Know what I mean. Why new channel encrypt?”

Tim made a face and looked across the rooftops to the
neon glow of Chinatown. He took out his grapnel and fired a line.

“I’ll tell you but it’s a long story and I’d rather
tell it moving. We can check on Ra’s and get some spring rolls.”

Once it became clear that Harley’s contacting Selina
was not part of Joker’s plan, that it had nothing to do with Mad Hatter or
Cheshire Cats, that Harley was effectively going behind Joker’s back, Batman
figured the address she gave for the meeting was an extra hacienda not
currently in use. It would be worth checking—ANY lead was worth checking at
this point—but he wasn’t expecting to find anything.

Selina agreed that he wouldn’t find Joker hunched over
a worktable with a crate of explosives and a carton of beer hats, but she
did worry that he might find something else. If Harley did use the empty
haciendas for meetings she didn’t want Joker to know about…

“Why smirk? What funny?” Cassie asked irritably.

Tim didn’t think he was smirking, but he did feel his
cheeks burn a little. He was a guy. And enemies or not, Ivy was a very hot
woman and Harley was a crazy blonde bundle of energy. The idea of the two
of them meeting in secret in some empty hacienda…

“STOP SMIRK AND TELL STORY,” Cassie ordered.

Tim sighed. Nobody should have to put up with a
girlfriend who could read body language that well. It wasn’t right and it
wasn’t fair.

“Stupid Tim. If no will tell, will get story from
Nightwing. Will tell Nightwing must ask him because you no can tell without
stupid smirk.”

“Okay, okay. Everyone knew Ivy would be on the war
path after the orchid show. We had to figure the only reason she hadn’t
attacked him yet was the same reason we haven’t arrested him: none of us
know where he is. Ivy would be sure to go to any hacienda she knew about,
and if she found it empty, she’d still be keeping an eye on it. Now,
Selina’s got this idea in her head that whenever Ivy wants to snuff someone
on the most wanted list, Batman’s her first call.”

“Because Clayface.”

“Right, that whole episode with her wanting to kill
Clayface last year. Selina figured even if Ivy didn’t have the idea to
start with, if she’s watching the hacienda and sees the Batmobile drive up:
light bulb! There’s B, delivering himself right into her line of sight,
right within greening distance. So Cat figured there’s only way to handle
it…”

Alfred called it the “Joker walk.” Whenever the madman
was free, Bruce’s step was a little more hurried whenever he approached the
study. He didn’t sprint or anything, but there was a touch more urgency in
his step: across the great hall, down the hallway past the dining room, past
the drawing room door, and turning into the study. Dick and Tim knew the
heightened movement also down in the cave. He’d make a beeline for
Workstation 1 and check if there had been any new developments in the four
to five hours he had been asleep. There would be a flicker of relief,
nothing more, when no news reports were flagged. Then he would set the
standard routines in motion: At Large list, traffic reports, weather
forecasts and other pertinent information, all feeding into the Batmobile.
He would tweak the subroutines—it was almost a nervous habit when Joker was
free—Psychobat’s subconscious check: if Joker was free and there was no
news, it could be because they had missed something.

Once the subroutines were under way, he
headed into the costume vault to change… and there, propped up against
his right gauntlet, was a note the size of a business card: “Gone ahead to the 41st
Street hacienda. Catch up with you by 10. Meow”

The whole world tilted, like the slanted loop of that
“h” in “ahead.” What was she doing? Gone ahead to the hacienda? What did
that mean? Alone? What was she…

Yes, Psychobat would later concede, bringing her
into his life was the right move. “Happiness for Bruce Wayne did not mean
less Batman for Gotham,” et cetera, et cetera. And so much of his life
was crimefighting, it was natural that he wanted her to be a part it. But
he’d always imagined it as her standing beside him on a rooftop before
swinging into battle together or sifting through data in the cave—not
FINDING A NOTE in that cave that she was handling a dangerous operation
without him! Not pulling up to Joker’s hacienda inside the armor of the
Batmobile and seeing her stroll out, exposed and unprotected. Nothing but
that thin leather costume to shield her, it made him feel he was the
one exposed and vulnerable.

It was something about her walk that sent that wave of
dread through his system like that first breath of fear toxin, her walk as
she saw the Batmobile and strode up to it, it was that Job Well Done
Swagger. She looked like an action hero who’d just set a bomb in the
villain’s hideout, striding calm and determined towards the camera, never
flinching as the building behind them explodes into an all-consuming
fireball. A cliché, but an image so ingrained into the public psyche
that Batman half-expected the hacienda to burst into a fiery explosion
behind her.

“No get.”

“Sure you do, Cass. That slow motion walk they do in
all the movie trailers, that music from Kill Bill blasting, then
BOOM! FIREBALL! Zoom in for a close-up on the eyes, satisfied blink with
little bits of shrapnel blowing past in slow motion behind them.”

“Catwoman no blow up hacienda.”

“No, I’m not sayin’ she did. I’m just sayin’ it looked
like that.”

“You no there. No can say how it look.”

“Never mind,” Tim said wearily.

“Empty, just like you thought,” she said when she
reached the car.

Batman didn’t hear. That one moment of subconscious
expectation had seared the fears into his mind, repressed fears building
since she took those first tentative steps into crimefighting: her costume
so thin, her hair exposed, not to mention her cavalier attitude… “I’ve got
to get a set of Victor’s frigid-field generators now for my boots,” she had
said. Still thinking like a cat burglar. Still thinking like a thief.
When he said they couldn’t use the hacienda location she got from Harley,
what was her response? “No matter how many cameras or motion detectors they
put up, no matter how many armed guards or biometric scanners or inches of
reinforced titanium, there is always a way.” It was “problem-solving” “like
a vault.”

“What did you think you were doing, coming here all
alone?” he asked hoarsely. In his own ears, his voice was warped with rage,
but Catwoman noticed nothing.

“I covered that in the note,” she said lightly.

“No, you didn’t.”

“No? Well it was implied.”

Her manner was infuriating. That lilt in her voice,
the faux-innocence from a hundred open vaults. That lilt that, regardless
of the actual words, said “Oh, am I not supposed to be in here?”

“It was not implied,” Batman said coldly. “You said
you’d ‘gone ahead’ to the hacienda, would catch up with me at 10 (if ‘catch’
was supposed to be a cat pun, there was no indication of that fact). Meow.”

“I see,” she sighed as if she expected that would be
perfectly clear.

“Explain,” he ordered.

“We don’t scrap the rules for Joker, fine. But this is
Ivy, and she comes with her own set of rules. You know she won’t
take that flower show lying down. She’ll want to kill him, and we know her
first stop when she wants to off somebody on Batman’s most wanted list.”

The observation and insight that made Batman the
world’s greatest detective reached out and squashed his anger like swift
fingers snuffing a flame. Her words might be light and careless, but there
was a vulnerability behind them, one that had nothing to do with the lack of
armor in her costume.

“Clayface,” he said, reducing that nightmare episode to
a single word.

“I can’t go through it again, Bruce. You said it takes
two weeks to build up enough anti-tox in your system, and if you run into
her now—which is not, like, out of the realm of possibility seeing that
you’re both scouring the city looking for laughing boy—you’ve got nothing to
resist her with.”

It felt like that night in the bedroom, facing the
music after he’d put her in a sleeper hold and cuffed her to a fire escape
to keep her from following him. He had been so full of his own emotions, he
hadn’t stopped to consider hers. Whenever he went off to face the Joker,
she felt the same way he did seeing her run into danger. This wasn’t
exactly the same thing, but like that night, he had been so caught up in his
own feelings that he’d overlooked the obvious: Selina had feelings of her
own.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said mildly. “Ivy isn’t
going to green me to help her kill Joker. The idea would never occur to
her.”

“It did with Clayface. And don’t forget, she doesn’t
know she nearly succeeded there. As far as she’s concerned, it was really
Matt in disguise the whole time. If she knew she actually had you in her
viney clutches—”

“This is different. Selina, listen to me, Ivy hates
Joker. She hates him, do you understand? It’s a passion as potent
and all-consuming as love. She’ll want—she’ll need—the complete
visceral experience: to choke the life out of him with her bare hands. Even
the plants won’t get a piece of him, it wouldn’t be… satisfying.
Believe me, what she’s planning right now is very personal, individual,
intimate even. It’s not a team sport.”

Selina looked into his eyes for a long moment, and then
nodded.

“Okay, well…” she said finally. “She’s been here.
There’s flower shmutz on the back door, the kitchen floor and the door to
the basement, and it might be my imagination, but I could swear I got a
whiff of Lemon Pledge in the bedroom. She must’ve had the address from
Harley same as we did, but the happy couple haven’t been in there for quite
some time.”

“She’ll be keeping an eye on it anyway,” Batman
graveled. “Just in case.”

“And so will we?” Catwoman guessed.

He grunted. It was the only lead they had.

Two nights later, they added Sutton, NoLiTa, and a
section of Cobble Hill to the list of possible hacienda neighborhoods, but
they hadn’t found any trace of Joker or Harley, and they always found signs
that Ivy was searching as hard as they were.

Like now. The Batmobie had cruised across WesTheDi
towards the river, a few minutes later, the vine snaked after it, and a few
minutes after that, Catwoman swung through, patrolling the same route in the
other direction.

..:: Vine snake, ::.. she reported on the
OraCom.

..:: Same one as before? ::.. Batman asked,
checking the rearview mirror to see if he could spot it.

..:: You think I can tell them apart? It’s leafy
and it’s slithering under a mailbox, what do you want from me? ::..

Batman grunted.

“No get.”

“I know, Cass. Truth is, I don’t get it either. If
you or I had done it, we’d be benched ‘til Christmas. Hell, we’d be benched
‘til the day Jason Todd would’ve qualified for Medicare. But it’s different
for them. Catwoman’s not a sidekick, she’s… well, she’s Catwoman.
And she's on Channel 9. B is on Channel 1, they've been poking at each
other all week, and Oracle punched in at the wrong moment and got caught in
the middle. Hence the new encryption lockouts and all the
interference.”

“No get.”

“No get,” Robin echoed, lifting his spring
roll and touching it to hers like it was a toast.

Catwoman joined Batman in the Batmobile for the drive
out to Brooklyn. It wasn’t that long a drive, but it was too far to go
by whip-swing if she didn’t have to.

It was nice. She didn’t chatter like Robin when he was
nervous or excited, but she broke the silence now and then. Suddenly she
pointed: in front of the library a trio of vines had stopped in their
tracks, almost as if they’d heard a noise or caught a scent. They twisted
and writhed and then changed direction.

“They must have found something,” she breathed.

“I don’t think so,” Batman said. “They’re not moving
forward on their original path, they’re not going back the way they came,
and they’re not moving any faster. It’s more likely she’s called them off.”

“Called off the search? She’d only do that if she’s
found them.”

“That’s the most likely explanation,” Batman agreed.
He said nothing more until they were over the bridge. Then the car
slowed and pulled over.

“We’re not going to keeping following?” Selina asked.

“I am. Alone.”

“Now wait just a damn—”

“This isn’t about safety, it’s cover. Look where those
vines are headed and play it through in a straight line. Where does that
path lead?”

“The Iceberg.”

“Not the best place for you to be seen getting out of
the Batmobile. Take the rooftop route and I’ll see you there.”

While Batman was fairly certain the vines
were heading towards the Iceberg, he continued to follow them rather than
racing ahead. It was a gamble—everything was a gamble where Joker was
concerned—but if he acted on his assumption, if he went straight to the
Iceberg and found nothing, he might not be able to locate the vines again
once he doubled back. This way, if they led elsewhere, Catwoman was
still headed for the ‘Berg. If either Joker or Ivy was there without
the other, she could handle it, while he handled wherever these snaking
vines led. They moved slower than he would have liked, but simply by
being vines they honed his focus while he mapped out a strategy:

Ivy… She was always dangerous, but never so much as
when she was angry. When she was incensed, like now, she was at her most
deadly—and not only to her target. To everyone around her. The angrier she
got, her intended victim almost became safer in relation to everyone else.
Of all the opponents Batman had fought, Ivy was the most ineffective in the
grip of her own rage.

Trying to reason with her would be a waste of time.
There was no calming her down once she committed to a course of action.
While that made her doubly dangerous, it made her easy to fight. She became
so singularly focused, all he had to do was interrupt her targeting system:
put himself between her and the target, antagonize her with bluster and
machismo, use batarangs, gas pellets and remotes to pull her focus. He
would delay direct head-to-head combat as long as possible, giving her rage
no physical outlet and keeping her off-balance with distractions and
misdirection. Her frustration would build until, eventually, it would split
her focus. Her single-minded “Must kill” would splinter into “GAH, you
annoying shit! Get out of my way and let me do this.” It would be
expressed as an exasperated gasp, nothing more, but Batman knew from long
experience how to recognize those non-verbal cues. In Ivy, the turning
point was always an exasperated gasp. The moment he heard it, he’d know she
was frazzled, about to get sloppy. With luck, he would have that achieved
by the time Selina arrived. If not, Catwoman’s appearance would
certainly drive her over the edge.

That was the methodology. That’s the
strategy that was called for tonight: When they're that focused, distract
them—and the easiest way to do that is to keep getting in their way and
keeping them from their one all-consuming goal.

Meanwhile, the vines had reached their goal:
turning at the intersection that led to the Iceberg.

Although the street was unnaturally quiet…

No pedestrian traffic, few parked cars, no Talon or
Crow on the door…

Batman went inside cautiously…

And continued to feel like he’d missed the rapture.
No one in the entrance, no one at the coat check, no one at Raven’s podium.

Then…

A lone figure sat at the only occupied table in the
dining room—a figure in green, but not the green Batman expected. Edward
Nigma sat, his fingers poised in a neat steeple pointing upward to the tip
of his nose.

Catwoman’s path to the Iceberg was more direct than the
Batmobile’s, but she veered off course when she spotted Zed, one of the lead
Z, slinking down 11th towards the parking lot. Zed drew the short straw the
one time Catwoman had contacted the Z to set up a lair. He went to meet her
but Robin and Batgirl swung into action before they could even discuss
animal print cozy vs high tech modern. Catwoman blamed him for leading
teenage sidekicks to her door, and the only way Zed could clear himself was
to account for every move he’d made since breakfast.

It told her everything she needed to know that night:
about the Mad Hatter’s unfolding plot, the agents he had in place and traps
he had prepared—but it didn’t make tonight’s little chat a happy
prospect. Zed had very clear memories of those claws, and the unspeakable
things she threatened to do with them. But in his near-hysterical ramblings
and denials, Scarecrow’s name was mentioned twice.

Selina sighed to herself. This was going to take a
while—but cat burglar’s instinct said there was a prize to be had.
Curiosity and patience would be rewarded.

And it was a prize she could deliver that Batman would
never… Well, technically Batman could get Zed to talk too, if he had found
him. But his method would be all Bat, all crimefighter. Selina enjoyed
playing Catwoman’s reputation to bring Batman a prize from the Rogue side of
the equation. She smiled at Zed, metaphorically rolled up her sleeves and
literally cracked her knuckles… Whatever Batman found waiting for him at
the Iceberg, he could certainly handle it solo.

“Here we sit in the Iceberg Lounge,
O. Cobblepot proprietor.
What trait most distinct marks this Oswald P.
Without which the night would have been quieter?”

Batman scowled. And Riddler smiled.

“The meter isn’t my best, I’ll grant you, but I’m
extemporizing. Sort of a sonnet-haiku-limerick. Not bad considering.
I’ve only had a few minutes to compose it before—eeht.” He gasped and
gurgled as Batman pulled him from his seat, then resumed his gaming smile
since Batman’s move did lift him up where he could look his nemesis in the
eye.

“Where are they?” Batman graveled.

“Answer mine and I’ll answer yours, Caped Curmudgeon.”

Batman let him drop back down to the chair.

“The absence of birds or umbrellas wouldn’t make the
night any quieter, nor would his nose, which is Cobblepot’s most distinctive
physical characteristic.”

“Oh contraire, birds chirp,” Eddie said in a chirpy
voice of his own. “At least one of Ozzy’s umbrellas fires bullets, and if
he had a cold, his nose would—” Batman cut off these musings with a fierce
kick at the table, which caused a sharp scraping sound but no movement.
“But okay, you’re right,” Nigma continued. “It’s none of those things. A
good riddle should eschew the obvious, otherwise any dullard could just
guess the answer without solving a thing. Birds and umbrellas are obvious,
and no one would argue if you called that nose conspicuous.”

“Greed,” Batman said darkly.

“Kee-rect,” Riddler beamed. “After Luthor, Oswald
Cobblepot is the greediest character I ever met,” he said, leaning back in
his chair. The move was a taunt. I fear no bats; I fear them not,
it proclaimed. Batman glowered, which Eddie seemed to enjoy. His tone
became more expansive, a natural storyteller with a great yarn to spin: “Once Joker pulled the trigger on those homing pigeons, Ozzy didn’t care so
much about his theme-schemes. Not from a personal standpoint. Not once the
birds were back in their coops. He reverted to type, started looking for
ways to make a buck from the situation.”

“Typical,” Batman grunted.

“Ozzy’s no fool. He knew Joker wasn’t going to pay for
anything, but Pammy—”

“Poison Ivy,” Batman corrected.

“What’s in a name? Would not that which we call a rose
by any other word be a vicious, fanged flower that bites anyone who gets
near it? Oswald knew Pammy’d be an easy touch. He let her know he could
deliver Joker here at the Iceberg on any given night—for a fee.

“Asking for the dandelion treatment in my opinion.
She’s greened men for less. But that’s what Ozzy did, and somehow or other,
he got away with it. Women are the ultimate riddle, Bats. She’s greened
men for doing nothing more than being a little crankly after a really bad
fixup with a henchwench wannabe named Cluerissa. That’s Clue-rissa!
Couldn’t you just gag? Being a little cranky after a bad double date and
crossing her path when she’s having a mood, that gets you greened.
But Ozzy gets away with shaking her down on this Joker thing.”

It was no riddle to Batman. It was
precisely the aspect of Poison Ivy’s character he was banking on: her
single-minded focus when she was riled.

“If you’re not part of the problem, you’re part of the
solution,” he explained. “Cobblepot was making himself part of the
solution. It wouldn’t occur to her to green him to avoid paying for the
service.” No more than it occurred to her to kill, unmask, or discredit
Batman when she’d greened him the year before. Her focus then was to make
him tell her how to kill Clayface, and until that was accomplished, she had
no other thought in her head.

“Well anyway,” Nigma resumed, “I don’t know what she
paid, but Ozzy got word to Joker that he was so impressed with the pigeon
stunt that he was prepared to concede the victory. He wanted to honor Joker
at a special ceremony, award him the Golden Feather of Distinguished Bird
Roguery or what have you…”

Eddie had ordered another Glenondrumm and when it came,
he persuaded Dove to sit with him. Of course that wasn’t allowed, but who’s
expected to follow rules in a Rogue bar?

“Mr. Cobblepot always says the Old Guard Rogues can
have anything they want. Just make sure it goes on their tab.”

Eddie didn’t think clever wordplay about Dove “going on
his tab” would be well received. She might get the double entendre, but if
she did, it would make the implication that Oswald would charge for her all
the more insulting. Instead, he regaled her with his favorite riddles and
anagrams related to the words “Brinks Truck.”

It was going well. Dove was a pretty thing, smarter
than the average henchwench, much smarter than the average groupie—but not
averse to spending time with theme rogues. Not looking down on theme
criminals with some high and mighty chip on her shoulder just because the
way she made her money was legal. She listened attentively as he broadened
his theme, explaining that “cash in transit” actually anagrammed as
“Sacristan Hint.” If you weren’t squeamish about leaving a riddle with a
priest…

And that’s when it happened: HAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

The smiles of a pretty woman and the mental diversion
of the sacristan hints had driven the depression from his mind. Now,
with that awful cackle, the blow fell anew. Death by Stupidity. The most
fiendishly clever Riddler scheme in years, and he hadn’t thought of it.
HAHAHAHAHA, indeed. It wasn’t funny. Not one bit.

Nasty shock for the Iceberg patrons,
enjoying a nice glass of Glenondrumm, pretty girl listening so attentively,
then that cackle—HAHAHAHA—Joker and Harley standing at Raven’s podium,
wanting to know when the party is starting.

“And Ivy was waiting,” Batman prompted.

Eddie looked peevish at the interruption. He had
paused for effect. A master storyteller trying to convey the monumentality
of the moment.

“That’s… really… lowballing it,” he said at last. “She
was poised… in Booth 3… by the door… None of us knew what was going
on of course. I did notice she wasn’t hiding behind that curtain of foliage
at her usual table, but it didn’t seem all that strange. She was sort of
wandering around the dining room most of the night, but she’s Pammy. She’s
odd. Certainly didn’t seem like she was keeping an eye on the door.
But once I heard that cackle, HAHAHAHAHA, I turned around and there she was:
Booth 3, standing on the seat and just… poised… like one of those toy
monkeys with the cymbals.

“I think she was supposed to be a flytrap, but the way
she sprung at him, the hands closing in from both sides and this loud Xena
war cry, it was more cymbal monkey than flytrap. Harley yelled something
original like ‘Red, no!’ and that must’ve really stung like a bitch, because
here she had Joker’s head between her hands, and she lets him go to take a
swing at Harley. Generally speaking, when Pammy’s worked up, she’s like a
homing missile. But here, she lets go of her target with kind of an
abbreviated nut-kick to take a wild swing at Harley.

“Joker says ‘Nice diversion there, Harls’ wherein Ivy
swings right back around and pokes him in the teeth. I can only assume she
was hoping to poke him in the eye, but instead, she hit dentine. Oh well…
Harley cries ‘Puddin’!’ and Ivy swings back at her, Joker says ‘Nyuk, nyuk,’
and Ivy swings back at him. Some of us are thinking they could keep this
going all night, or until Ivy gets dizzy, falls down and sees God.”

Batman managed to control himself. Every Robin gave
colorful and flippant reports like this in the beginning. He deliberately
forced his mind into that mode: reading Dick’s fanciful and undisciplined
logs in the early days, rather than noticing any similarities to Selina’s
method of giving a sitrep.

“So Joker nips at her—which isn’t as crazy as it sounds
when she keeps putting her finger in his face that way. She throttles—or
tries to, but this time he knows it's coming and does that bouncy back and
forth thing with his head. She takes another swing at Harley, Quinn ducks
and Joker shoots a blast of (I guess) SmileX at her. That stuff doesn’t
work on Pammy but DOES piss her off big time. She shoots a few pheromones
his way, which doesn’t work on him but—once again—pisses her
off even more. She grabbed his lapels and ordered her vines to wrap around
his legs and make a wish. Harley is jumping up and down for her to stop and
trying to hold back that monster flytrap she’s got.”

“Ivan,” Batman said absently.

“Eh, y-yeah, what do you call a
transportation app for the iPhone?” he said, merely as a mnemonic to
remember the beast-plant’s name.

“Go on,” Batman ordered, but when the story resumed,
there was a subtle change in the tempo, like Nigma was waiting for
something.

“So Joker’s got these snaking vines starting to spread
his legs. Yells out ‘Hey! Watch the giblets there, Queeny.’ Harley’s
racing through the stages of grief. Denial: ‘No, Red, no!’ Anger: punching
the flytrap fronds and calling it names. Despair: ‘No, Red, no’ again. And
then she gets to bargaining. ‘Red, listen, it doesn’t have to be this way.
If you didn’t like Puddin’s little take on your theme, maybe you could
have some fun with his?’”

Nigma had been watching Batman’s face intently, waiting
for this moment. Now, as the meaning of those last words sunk in, he was
not disappointed.

“The mind boggles, doesn’t it?” he prompted. “Ivy’s
take on Joker, everyone move one theme to the right?”

But Batman offered nothing more than a silent glower as
an insight to his thoughts.

“By this time, the rats were scuttling,” Eddie went
on. “I can’t make it to the door without passing through the pheromone red
zone, so I hid behind those champagne crates over there. Peeked through the
crack, saw and heard everything that came next, after the place emptied out: Harley and the flytrap fighting it out for the big rubber mallet, Joker's
still got vines wrapped around his ankles, new ones wrapping the arms while
Ivy wraps her hands around his throat—and he’s GIGGLING! Ivy’s choking him
hard, watching the life drain from those frantic little eyes, and in between
the chokes and the struggles, he's still giggling.

“’Hey, Harls, you’re right,’ he sputters—because at
this point, Ivy’s figured out her hands aren’t big enough, and she tries to
get one of the vines around his neck like a garrote. That lets him get out
more words at a stretch. ‘Come look at this, Harley. She’s fuming so hard,
she’s practically emitting spores, HAHAHAHA-echt.’ That last part when
Pammy got the vine in place, obviously. Then it became a tug of war: he’s
got her wrists and she’s got the end of the vines. He pries an opening to
say a few words and she tightens them again. ‘Just look at ha-ha-her—eccht’
‘She’s more than—eccht—funny. She’s downright hysterical—eccht.’
‘You always told me she couldn’t tell a joke-HAHAHA-ACHT.’ ‘You said
she takes herself too seriously for—eccht—You mean she's not even
trying? She is a NATURAL HAHAHA—eccht TALENT.’

“Harley and the flytrap are still wrestling for the
giant rubber mallet. They’ve got it high in the air, and I have no idea
who had the better grip. I don’t think they knew either, but they were
mutually moving towards Ivy and Joker, and sooner or later, that thing was
coming down.

“’Why it’s astounding, HAHAHA—eccht,’ from
Joker. ‘That funny without trying? It’s astounding, it’s amazing, it’s,
it’s… it’s HOT!’ … And he kissed her. Ivy screamed. Harley screamed. The
mallet came down. Ivy and the plant went one way, Harley and Joker went the
other, and I stayed safely behind those crates until it got quiet again.”

“Why did you stay?” Batman asked darkly.

Riddler smiled, walked back towards the champagne
crates, and retrieved a bottle and a glass.

“Join me?” he offered.

“Why did you stay?” Batman repeated.

“Second verse, same as the first, eh?” he quipped,
pouring an inch of liquid into his glass. “Tidy wish day. Why did I stay?
Maybe I’ve embellished a few details,” he said, sipping. “It’s possible.
Maybe Ozzy decided there was more money to be made. Ivy versus Joker,
there's mondo betting-pool potential there… It’s possible. Maybe Oswald
Cobblepot’s greed decided that offering Joker-on-a-platter to Ivy wasn't
enough, not when he could set it up like a prize fight. Not when he had a
monopoly on the action. That, Bats, is very, very possible.

“Of course, knowing what a brawl on that scale could
lead to, there’s no way he’d want that kind of property damage here in the
Iceberg. He’d have to find somewhere else for the fight. However, knowing
the way word gets around in this town, and since all Rogue roads lead back
to the ‘Berg, someone would have to stay behind… to make sure that the
straggling bettors—er, patrons, that is—make it to the fight. And on
top of all that, there was you, Bats. Whoever stayed behind had to be
someone who could delay the Bat long enough for the fight to take place and
conclude. No need to let someone like you ruin a perfectly good
money-making venture like the fight of the century.”

“And they elected YOU to delay me?” Batman sneered.

“Did it work?”

Catwoman entered the Iceberg just in time to see
Batman’s punch hurl Eddie across four tables to land at her feet in a dazed
heap.

“Can’t leave you two alone for a minute,” she muttered.

“It was a joke, it was a joke” Nigma said mechanically
as he got to his feet. “There she is. Just passing the time waiting for
you, puss-puss.”

“Puss puss?” Selina said. “How hard did you hit him?”

“Not to worry, Bats,” Riddler grinned, “It all happened
just like I told you. The vines, the giblets, the stages of grief, the kiss
and the mallet. I was hiding behind those champagne crates, heard the whole
thing.”

“The stages of grief, the kiss and the mallet?”
Selina mouthed, thinking that even for an Iceberg tale, she might not want
to know the details on this one.

“Then WHY did you STAY?” Batman asked, punctuating each
word with a blast of Psychbat venom.

“Why did I stay to talk to you when I could have been
safe out the door an hour ago? What’s my usual reason, Bats? To ask a
question, of course.”

He looked happily from Batman’s scowl to
Selina’s puzzled frown.

“In case you two haven't noticed,” he said, “Joker's
taking other people's themes out for a joy ride. My question to you both is
this: ‘What are you planning to do when he gets to Hugo?’”